[3.16] Ethereal Knives Deadeye | Scourge

One of my favourite skills is Ethereal Knives, and i was trying to find a build that uses it. I couldnt find a build that met what i wanted, so i decided to make it myself.

EK isn't a great skill, but i did my best with it and i think it's viable for a lot of content.

POB
https://pastebin.com/S1uNVQd5




1. Introduction

How Good is it?

With relatively budget gear, this is the kind of damage you can expect


Pros/Cons

Pros:
Fast (100+% Movement Speed Modifier)
Good Clear
Can reach high damage with little investment
Very evasive

Cons:
Not much life
Needs some investment to reach a good state
Uses a Boss-Gated item
Pretty reliant on Cluster Jewels

HC/SSF/Leaguestart Viable?

Not HC Viable.

SSF could be viable but would be difficult.

You could leaguestart with it but you probably wouldnt have a great time. better to leaguestart with something like TR and once you've got some currency, buy some cold iron points and a Devouring Diadem and go for it.

If you do want to leaguestart with it, ill have a guide to it down below.





2. Levelling

Levelling Trees

These will take you step by step what you should get when levelling.



Act 1-2

---Attack---


---Auras---


---Movement---


Use whatever you want to until you can get toxic rain at level 12. I used burning arrow with pierce.

Use clarity to solve early mana problems, level it as necessary.

Interchange Smoke Mine -> dash to get the max effectiveness out of them.

Pick up a void manipulation support and level it in other slots for when you get a 4L.

Kill all the bandits.


Act 3

---Attack---


---Auras---


---Movement---


---Utillity---


You get access to the Library in act 3, you can buy the other gems you need if you have the currency.

you should be able to ditch clarity by the end of act 3.

Take gathering winds as your first lab.


Act 4-6

---Attack---


---Auras---


---Movement---


---Utillity---


You can interchange haste and grace depending if you want to go faster or have more survivability.


Act 7-8

---Attack---


---Auras---


---Movement---


---Utillity---


Take Focal Point as your second lab.

If you can get a Devouring Diadem, you can use all the auras at once.


Act 9-10

Once you make it to Act 9, you can switch to EK, as you are high enough level to use Cold iron point and Devouring Diadem.

---Attack---




---Auras---


---Movement---


---Utillity---


Portal is a very nice quality of life you can use from the start, but its hard to get early league.

We use blade blast as a "finisher", but you can choose a defensive option instead of this if you want, such a CWDT-Steelskin setup.

You should be able to fit all the auras if you use The Devouring Diadem, but if not, reduce the level of precision until you can.

You'll want to take Ricochet as your third lab, and endless munitions as your fourth lab.

You'll want to use praxis rings or get rings with -# mana cost to non-channelling skills so you can comfortably use the skill.


Levelling with EK

So... you actually want to level with this? Well, your choice.

Below is a POB for the trees you'll want to follow:

POB
https://pastebin.com/GujE3PjK


For gear, you want to get 2 wands with +1 to physical spell skill gems.

There are plenty of guides to get these, I recommend Lolcohol's which can be found here: https://youtu.be/SDHawpi2wmk








3. Gear


Levelling Gear




You can use any levelling gear, and if you're doing this a leaguestart, you want to get MS on the boots, attack speed on the bow and a quiver with life. You want evasion bases.


EK gear




This is just an example of gear that you could use. Obviosuly a 6L Kintsugi is expensive and is more of a stretch goal, but you can just as easily use a 6L Assassin's garb with life, resists and life regen to counteract the degen from blood rage.

Obviously make sure your resists are capped before you start mapping.


Jewels

---Cluster Jewels---
We want to use cluster jewels since they give a huge amount of damaage and can allow us to use more auras, as well as getting other buffs. These are some examples of what you're looking for. They are kind of expensive, so they should be gotten later league.


---Normal Jewels---
Any jewel with life and cast speed will work. Prefferably you want: life, cast speed, crit strike multi and any other mod. Corrupted blood immunity can be gotten with these.



For a watcher's eye, a good defensive option is: #% to supress spell damage while affected by grace, and a good offensive option is: #% chance to deal double damage while using pride

You have phasing while affected by haste is a nice quality of life








Misc


Why Ethereal Knives?

I wanted to play an EK build, but i couldnt find one to my satisfaction, so i decided to make my own.


Why do we use Toxic Rain to level?

EK is rather uncomfortable to level with because of its mana cost and low single-target. We level with TR until level 62 where we can equip Cold Iron Point, and EK can start to shine.


Im having mana problems!

Invest in some ES Leech and use -mana cost on your rings/amulet until you can sustain


Why not Raider?

Deadeye does more damage and has better clear/mobility, but if you decide to go Raider, you'll want to go: Way of the poacher -> Avatar of the Slaughter -> Rapid Assault -> Avatar of the Chase.


When to switch to Cluster Jewels?

The Cluster jewels aren't extremely expensive, so around the time you pick up a kintsugi will be when you want to switch to them.


Wouldn't Bladefall be better?

Yes; That's not the point of this build though. If you want a bladefall/Blade blast build, there are plenty of them around.


Why stack MS?

Fast = fun c:



If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
Last edited by Kikifruit on Jan 3, 2022, 7:44:30 PM
Last bumped on Jan 17, 2022, 8:34:46 AM
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6k hours in PoB, Boss asked me what happened to your excel sheet.
Last edited by NatesScrewed on Apr 13, 2022, 5:00:21 PM
Thanks for this! This is my first attempt at making a build, and honestly after playing the one that was posted, it really didnt turn out well...

Thanks for posting a PoB of the improvements, I'm definitely gonna look over it and see what you did to make it better.

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